The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) must conduct a meaningful analysis of the staffing it needs to address an unconstitutionally inadequate level of care for prisoners who have mental illnesses, according to a brief filed in federal court yesterday by the SPLC.

A detained immigrant complained of constant, unrelenting and unchecked bullying as well as graphic sexual harassment from guards and other detainees who directed derogatory comments and obscene gestures toward him because he is gay, and he was informed that his only recourse was to be isolated in solitary confinement, according to a complaint the SPLC sent today to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Healthy people who are forced into solitary confinement in prison may develop mental illnesses due to their isolation, but the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) deliberately ignores the problem, according to a brief filed in federal court last week by the SPLC.